Focuses on the history of sexuality in the West from approximately
1600 to the present. Alternates between close readings of key theoretical tests
(e.g., Jewish and Christian scripture, Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, Gayle
Rubin, theorists from the contemporary Christian Right) and case studies of
debates around sexuality within specific historical contexts. The latter will
include Renaissance European conceptions of homosexuality; late nineteenth-century
British debates about prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases; controversies
about abortion, birth control and women's rights in Weimar and Nazi Germany;
and modern Conservatives' much- contested efforts to roll back the so-called
"sexual revolution."

WAGS
22
EUR 23

Age
of Chivalry
Monday, Wednesday 2:00 p.m.

Howell
Chickering
Frederic Cheyette

Although "chivalry" is now considered a quaint term describing
male conduct in love and war, the concept was originally shaped in part by women,
not only as the objects of male desire but also as patrons of poets and musicians.
Focuses on the literature and music produced for the courts of two twelfth-century
rulers: Ermengard of Narbonne, patron of the troubadours and Marie de Champagne,
patron of the romance writer Chretien de Troyes. To explore the power structures
and ideologies of chivalric culture, we will also read chronicles, charters,
and other documents; analyze the iconography of manuscript images; and sing
troubadour songs (no prior knowledge of music is expected). All texts will be
read in translation, and in dual-language editions where possible.

WAGS
30

Autobiographies
of Women
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00 a.m.

Susan
Snively
Rose Olver

How does the writing of autobiography help a woman affirm,
construct, or reconstruct an authentic self? How does she resolve the conflict
between telling the truth and distorting it in making her life into art? Is
the making of art, indeed, her chief preoccupation; or is her goal to record
her life in the context of her times, her religion, or her relationship to others?
Reading autobiographies of women writers helps us raise, if not resolve, these
questions. We shall also consider how women write about experiences particular
to women as shown in their struggles to survive adversity; their sense of themselves
as authorities or challengers of authority, as well as their sense of what simply
gives them pain or joy. Readings from recent work in the psychology of woman
will provide models for describing women's development, as writing of women
in turn will show how these models emerge from real lives. The syllabus will
include traditional autobiography, historical memoir, poetry, journals and personal
narratives, psychological studies, criticism and theory: Maxine Hong Kingston's
The Woman Warrior, Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,
poetry and prose by Elizabeth Bishop, Shirley Abbot's Womenfolks, Charlotte
Bronte's Jane Eyre, Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John, Carol Gilligan's
In a Different Voice, Mary Field-Belenky, et al., Women's Ways of
Knowing, and recent work by Janet Surrey, as well as selections from works
by Paule Marshall, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Lorene Cary,
and, of course, Anonymous. Writing Requirements will include several short papers
and an autobiographical essay.

WAGS
32

Sex,
Self, and Fear
Monday 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Stephanie
Sandler

Freud located identity formation in the emotion of fear-a boy's
fear of castration, a girl's terror at lack. Later theories have agreed that
worries about exposure, ridicule, and confession shape the sexual self. Our
course will explore the gendered origins and effects of fear, asking how fear
of the other sex, and fear about the self, ground identity. We will try to differentiate
among forms of fear, comparing anxiety, obsession, trauma, and phobia. Course
material will be studied for the ways in which it condenses and substitutes
various forms of dread. The course material will include fiction (Pat Barker,
Regeneration; Lydia Chukovskaya, Sofia Petrovna; Toni Morrison,
Jazz; Mary Shelley, Frankenstein), poetry (by Ana Akhmatova, Rita
Dove, Thom Gunn, Elizabeth Macklin); theory (Freud, Torok and Abraham); quasi-autobiography
(Kenzaburo Oe, A Quiet Life; Nathalie Sarraute, Childhood), and
film (Carrie, M, Perfect World, Psycho, Vertigo). We will ask what cultural
and psychological work fear performs: what fears are required for liberation
from social taboos? How do adults contain (and repeat) the fears that ruled
childhood? Why do we like to be frightened?

WAGS
56
REL 56

Islamic
Construction of Gender
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00 a.m.

Jamal
Elias

The focus of this course is on the lives on contemporary Muslim
women, the factors informing constructions of gender in the Islamic world, and
the role played by questions of women's status in modern Islamic religion and
society. Begins by briefly examining the status and images of women in classical
Islamic thought, including themes relating to scripture, tradition, law, theology,
philosophy and literature. Also focuses on contemporary Muslim women in a number
of different cultural contexts from Morocco to Bangladesh and the United States
in order to highlight a variety of issues significant for contemporary Muslim
women; veiling and seclusion, kinship structures, violence, health feminist
activism, literary expression, etc. Deals with an exploration of Muslim feminist
thought, which we will attempt to place in dialog with western feminism with
the hope of arriving at a better understanding of issues related to gender,
ethics and cultural relativism. Weekly readings will include original religious
texts in translation, secondary interpretations, ethnographic descriptions and
literary works by Muslim women authors. These will be supplemented by feature
films and documentaries to provide a visual complement to the textual materials.

WAGS
64
HIST 49

Women's
History: 1865-1997
Tuesday, Thursday 2:00 p.m.

Martha
Saxton

This course begins with an examination of the experience of
women from different racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds during Reconstruction.
It will look at changes in family life as a result of increasing industrialization
and the westward movement of settler families, and will also look at the settlers'
impact on Native American women and families. Topics will include the work and
familial experiences of immigrant women (including Irish, German, and Italian),
women's reform movements (particularly suffrage, temperance and anti-lynching),
the expansion of educational opportunities, and the origins and programs of
the Progressives. The course will examine the agitation for suffrage and the
subsequent split among feminists, women's experience in the labor force, and
participation in the world wars. Finally, we will look at the origins of the
Second Wave and its struggles to transcend its while middle-class origins.

WAGS
65
POLSCI 65

States
of Poverty
Tuesday 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Kristin
Bumiller

Examines the role of the modern welfare state in people's everyday
lives. Studies the historical growth and retrenchment of the modern welfare
state in the United States and other Western democracies. Critically examines
the ideologies of "dependency" and the role of the state as an agent of social
control. In particular, we will study the ways in which state action has implications
for gender identities. Analyzes the construction of social problems linked to
states of poverty, including hunger, homelessness, health care, disability,
discrimination, and violence. Asks how these conditions disproportionately affect
the lives of women and children. Takes a broad view of the interventions of
the welfare state by considering not only the impact of public assistance and
social service programs, but the role of the police, family courts, therapeutic
professionals, and schools in creating and responding to the conditions of impoverishment.
Work of the seminar will culminate in the production of a research paper and
students will be given the option of incorporating field work into the independent
project.

WAGS
66
HIST 43

Church/Family
in the 19th Century
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30 a.m.

Martha
Saxton

This course will look at women's experience through the lenses
of religion, family and literary culture from the beginning of the nineteenth
century through the Gilded Age. Using a mix of primary and secondary sources,
students will trace the changing moral values guiding female education as well
as the varieties of Christianity that gave shape to different forms of activism.
It will also track changing family ideologies, the responsibilities of mothers
and constructions of childhood. The course will include women's texts reflecting
on their experiences as daughters, mothers, reformers, slaves, Christians and
professionals. It will look at the development of various strands of feminist
thought and the production of a class of educated middle-class women interested
in blunting the brutalities of capitalism.

Pioneering feminist critic Barbara Smith says, "All the men
are Black, all the women are White, but some of us are brave." This cross-cultural
course focuses on "brave" women from Africa and its New World Diaspora who dare
to tell their own stories and, in doing so, invent themselves. Begins with a
discussion of the problematics of writing and reading autobiographical works
by those usually defined as "other," and proceed to a careful study of such
varied voices as escaped slave Linda Brent/Harriet Jacobs, political activists
Ida B. Wells, and feminist, lesbian poet Audre Lorde - all from the U.S.; Lucille
Clifton, the Sistren Collective (Jamaica), Caroline Maria deJesus (Brazil);
Buchi Emecheta (Nigeria), and Nafissatou Diallo (Senegal).

ENGL
75 #2
BLCKST 44

Issues of Gender in African Literature

Rhonda
Cobhan-Sanders

Explores the ways in which issues of gender are presented by
African writers and perceived by readers and critics of African writing. Examines
the insights and limitations of selected feminist, post-structural and post-colonial
theories when they are applied to African texts. Also looks at the difference
over time in the ways that female and male African writers have manipulated
socially acceptable ideas about gender in their work. Texts will be selected
from the oeuvres of established writers like Soyinka, Acheve, Ngugi and Head,
as well as from more recent works by writers like Farah, Aidoo, and Dangaremba.
Preference will be given to students who have completed a previous course on
African literature, history, or society.

HIST
20

Seminar
on Gender and Fascism

Kenneth
Holston

What were the gendered components of fascist ideology? Through
an examination of a series of related themes - the cult of masculinity, women
and the vote, the cult of motherhood, racial hygiene, women as victims and perpetrators,
and women in the fascist state and society - this seminar seeks to illuminate
the crucial role of gender in the ideological formations and political structures
of both Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy.

POLSCI
39
LJST 39

Re-Imagining
Law: Feminist Interpretations

Kristin
Bumiller

Feminist theory raises questions about the compatibility of
the legal order with women's experience and understandings and calls for a reevaluation
of the role of law in promoting social change. It invites us to inquire about
the possibilities of a "feminist jurisprudence" and the adequacy of other critical
theories which promise to make forms of legal authority more responsive. Considers
women as victims and users of legal power. Asks how particular practices constitute
genders subjects in legal discourse. How can we imagine a legal system more
reflective of women's realities? The nature of legal authority will be considered
in the context of women's ordinary lives and reproductive roles, their active
participation in political and professional change, their experiences with violence
and pornography as well as the way they confront race, class and ethnic barriers.